Nearly half of new U.S. power capacity in 2012 was renewable — mostly wind

As predicted, almost half of the new power-generating capacity installed in the United States last year was renewable.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission recently released its December update on the nation’s energy infrastructure [PDF]. When we last checked on the data, it suggested that some 46 percent of new capacity — January through October — was renewable. Well, that ratio improved over the last two months of the year. Ultimately, 49.1 percent of new capacity was renewable.

The latest Energy Infrastructure Update report from the Office of Energy Projects, part of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), lists just shy of 13GW of green energy projects coming online last year, a more than 50 percent rise on the 8.5GW of capacity added in 2011.

Around a quarter of this capacity became operational in December alone, as wind energy developers rushed to complete projects before the feared expiration of federal tax credits.

We noted last September the furious rush to bring those projects to completion. Seems like it worked.